This and That and Feast Days

We have had a fun Easter week.  Marc FINALLY got his braces off and everything looks great.  He will wear a retainer all the time for three months. 

Here he is the day he got them in January 2017-

He's really grown up in two years!

 We did our annual big porch cleaning the week before Easter and now we sit out there all the time.  I love it so much. 

We love to sit outside and do read alouds.  Right now we have started Enid Blyton's The Island of Adventure- the first book in her adventure series.  It started slow with character back stories, but now we are moving along and loving it. Charlie says, "please don't stop- keep going!" when I get to a chapter end.   It reminds me of Swallows and Amazons where the children have so much freedom and real adventures. 

All four children got haircuts this week finally.  And we celebrated the feast day of St. George!  He is one of our family's favorite saints- the boys have a painting of him in their bedroom.  He's the patron saint of England and is famous for "killing a dragon."  We made our annual dragon cake and put our new peg doll St. George beside it.  :)

 

We read several stories about his life.  I find that each story adds something new and it's worth the effort to read them all. 

Along with coloring pictures we watched a few videos on his life. 

The boys were excited to "stab" the dragon with kitchen knives so we could have our treat. 

This week also had the feast day of St. Mark the Evangelist, whom our family always honors.  His symbol is the lion so we made our cinnamon-roll lion today.  It had sugar-coated almonds (left over from salad recipe) as its facial features.  :)

We read stories about his life and watched some videos.  He is credited with taking the Christian faith to Alexandria and starting a famous school there.  

Geography is the big passion in our home again.  Tucker and Charlie both ALWAYS have an atlas in their hands- at breakfast, in the car, in a store, in bed- geography is their favorite thing to learn about (along with flags and science).  I have tried to use that passion when I teach history and science by bringing maps into it.  I found this map of Canada on the table the other day- this is what they do in their free time-

They love to play on Google Earth and find famous landmarks.  Many of the landmarks let you go inside.  They are also big into writing comic books- if you leave blank notebooks around they will be filled.  They also play with MagnaTiles still- those were worth every penny.  I walked in today to see this and Tucker said, "This looks like the Washington Monument melting into the ground."  :)

Annie Rosie is still the sweetest, happiest baby in the world and is bringing us so much joy.  

Swimming, Birding and Shakespeare

Tuesday was the feast day of St. Mark, obviously a favorite around here.  I wanted to do something that looked like a lion but all the internet ideas seemed to complicated.  In the end I made up this lion made with cinimmon rolls- (his eyes are frosted cinnamon rolls with chocolate chip pupils)  :)

We read from Saints and Angels-

We are going to the beach in a few weeks so I signed Tucker and Charlie up for some swim lessons to get them swimming stronger.  They love it and all of us have enjoyed going swimming several times this week. 

Wednesday we went with a doctor from the Audubon Society on a bird walk at the Botanical Gardens.  It was wonderful!  Julia said it's her favorite field trip she's been on all year.  She kept looking at me saying, "Oh- isn't this wonderful!?"  My girl loves God's creatures.    We saw over 20 types of birds.

We saw a meat-eating plant!

Yesterday I took Marc and Julia to see The Two Gentlemen of Verona at the Shakespeare Festival.   This is the advertisement the festival put out-

So imagine my surprise when the house lights dim and they start playing hippie 60s music and all the actors in 60s clothes come out.  It ended up being a well-acted play, but I think audiences should know if they are going to see a modern-interpretation.

While we were at the play Charlie and Tucker went to BB and Poppy's farm.  They each picked one toy to bring.  :)

Tucker managed to get his line tangled to the extreme, but he was happy because he thought it looked like the letter A.  :)

And BB has taught them how to make big bubble gum bubbles.  :)